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In actual fact, the implementation of nurses in rural communities was a national scheme.

Before the mid-19th Century, nursing was not seen as a respectable job. It was practiced by the poorest women and society associated it with slovenliness, bad character, and drunkenness. That changed in the Crimean War (1853-56) through the efforts of women such as #FlorenceNightingale and #MarySeacole. The second half of the century saw the beginning of nurse training and the recognition of it as a profession.

Queen Victoria took a great interest in this. In 1887, for her Golden Jubilee, Women's Institutes all over the country raised the vast sum of £70,000 and presented it to the queen. Victoria decreed that it should be used to provide training and support for a new scheme: District Nursing. This was the start of the community nursing we still benefit from in the UK today.

Hence the Jubilee Cottage for the Jubilee Institute Nurse.

But who was Veronica Badgery? And what about her absent husband?

A bit more digging gave me some fascinating answers.

In Marylebone in 1896, Annie Veronica Huntley, daughter of Richard Herbert Maxwell Huntley ('gentleman') married Thomas William Badgery, a leather dresser from Worcester.

In 1898, their son, Thomas Maxwell Badgery, was born.

In 1902, Anne Veronica filed for divorce.

#LocalHistory #Northumberland #WomensHistory #HealthcareHistory #NursingHistory #19thCentury

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In 1901, in the North #Northumberland village of Ford, there lived a young woman called Anne Veronica Badgery.

Veronica (as she was calling herself at this point, although earlier she seems to have been known as Annie) was 33, from Worcestershire, and she was a nurse. She lived in the cottage still known as the Jubilee Cottage (next door to the building pictured below, which was actually the village smithy; I just like the picture), which village history tells us was built for the purpose of housing a community nurse.

Unusually for a working, professional woman, the census records that she was married, although her husband wasn't present and she's listed as Head of Household, which, unless there was an error, means that her husband wasn't living there, rather than that he was temporarily absent. She also had a two-year-old son, Thomas Maxwell Badgery.

But let's zoom out for a moment for the wider context.

Popular local history tends to give full credit for the implementation of a village nurse and early free healthcare to the charitable efforts of the local lady of the manor, Louisa Waterford, who'd died in 1891. She was well-known for her philanthropy (as well as for her art and her wild rake of a husband, but that's a whole different story) and her transformation of the estate. Everyone here knows the name of Lady Waterford.

There was more than personal charity going on here though...

#LocalHistory #Northumberland #WomensHistory #HealthcareHistory